Meet your new favourite cookies: walnut Linzer cookies. They are perfect for the Christmas season. These mouth-melting, buttery, eggless, dusted in icing sugar treats are made of two walnut shortbread cookies stacked on top of each other, with a delicious plum and red berries preserve in the middle. They are simple yet stunning cookies, who everybody will love.
Now, for you who don’t know, Linzer cookies come from Linz in Austria. They are also called “Linzer Augen” or “Linzer Eyes”. In fact, they are round with a cut-out circle and filled with raspberry preserve. That being said, before Linzer cookies, there was “Linzer Torte” or Linzer cake. As an inspiration from the cake the cookies were created.
Even though they are a classic in Austria and South Germany, they are a classic in Slovenia, too. We call them Linški piškoti or Linške oči. Also, they are a holiday tradition in Slovenia, especially around Christmas.
Along with cookies, you can find a lot of delicious dishes on the Slovenian table. For example; the most known dessert ever called Kremšnita, the delicious baked milk rice or the classic meatloaf.
Furthermore, there are many variations of the favourite Austrian cookie out there. However, they always have the main characteristic that a Linzer cookie should have. In fact, it should be buttery, tender, filled with fruity preserve or jam or chocolate, they need to have a decorative cut-out on the top cookie and they need to be dusted with icing sugar.
What makes a Linzer cookie taste great
Moreover, almonds are the most common and key ingredients of the Linzer cookies. However, I swapped them for walnuts. Just as almonds, also walnuts add that lovely taste and crunch to the cookie. Additionally, I used quite a lot of orange zest, because I think it goes perfectly with walnuts and Christmas holidays. I always like a lovely orange aroma.
As mentioned before, the original recipe calls for raspberry preserve or jam. However, you can pick any flavour you like. I decided on plum and red berries preserve. Therefore, I made half cookies with plum preserve and the other half with red berries preserve. By the way, the preserve is like jam, only that preserve has chunks of fruits in it.
What you also find in the original recipe, are eggs. Well, this cookie recipe does not require any eggs at all. I didn’t feel the need to use an egg. The cookies are still really yummy.
Which cookie cutter should I use?
There are plenty of different cookie cutters. In fact, you can choose between, circles, squares, snowflakes, hearts, moons, daises and many many more. But, since it’s almost Christmas time, I used the star cutter. Moreover, star cookies look very pretty and festive.
Additionally, I suggest using some simple shapes. Using a snowflake shape, for example, can be very challenging if you are making these cookies for the first time. Therefore, let’s stay with the star-shaped cookie cutters. Moreover, use two cookie cutters of different sizes but of the same shape.
To sum up, here are the important things on how to make walnut Linzer cookies: chill the dough for at least two hours or overnight, dust your working surface and your rolling pin, bake the top and bottom part cookies separately, work quickly and keep the dough cold (the cookies will keep their shape and they won’t spread out).
Last, it is going to be a mess in the kitchen. But don’t give up. These walnut Linzer cookies are delicious and they amaze over and over again. They are totally worth all of the mess. Also, my cookies are a bit thinner (2-3 mm). Therefore the baking times were a little shorter. The cookies needed 4 minutes.
After you bake the cookies, you have three options: to freeze them (a couple of months), store them in a tin box (for some days) or to fill them with fruity jam and eat them right away. Wink. Fresh cookies filled with jam taste the best. However, the filling also softens the crisp cookie if you wait a little bit. Yummy!
Ingredients for about 40 walnut Linzer cookies:
- 240 g butter (room temperature)
- 120 g icing sugar
- 1 big orange (zest)
- 90 g ground walnuts
- 3 tsp of cinnamon
- 4 Tbsp of milk
- 330 g flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- red berries preserve or jam
- plum preserve or jam
- icing sugar (for dusting)
In a larger bowl mix butter and icing sugar. Once it gets fluffy, add the orange zest, ground walnuts, cinnamon and four spoons of milk. In the end, sieve in the flour and baking powder. Mix until well combined.
Then, form a ball and flatten it into a disk form. In order to allow it to rest, wrap it in the cling film foil and place it in the fridge, where you leave it at least a couple of hours or even better, overnight.
The following day, when you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 180º C and take one-quarter of the Linzer cookie dough out of the fridge. Before anything, dust your working surface with some flour. Then, roll out the dough between 3-6 mm thick.
Remember, you have to be quick when handling the dough, in order to keep it cold. Also, I kept the window half-opened. Consequently, the cold air will prevent the dough from becoming too soft and the cookies will keep a lovely shape.
Bake the base and top cookies separately
Furthermore, start making the walnut Linzer cookies using a cookie cutter. Make sure to cut out the middle of half of the cookies, using a smaller cutter. If the dough gets too soft, simply place it back in the fridge for some minutes. The same applies to the cut-out cookies.
Then, when placing the cut cookies on the baking sheet (covered with parchment paper) remember to separate the “base” cookies (the ones without the hole) and the “top” cookies (the ones with a hole) between two baking sheets. Why? The cookies with the cut-out hole bake faster.
Keep an eye on them while baking
Moreover, the baking time really depends on your oven and on how thick the cookies are. Mine needed only 4 minutes, while they were quite thin. However, once they turn golden on the edges, take them out of the oven, pull them together with the parchment paper off the baking sheet and let them cool down. Continue with the next round of cookies until you used all of the cookie dough.
What do you do with the dough scraps? Usually, when handling the dough, it gets too warm and it is not easy to manage any more. Therefore, press the scraps together and place in the fridge for a couple of minutes. Of course, use the dough till the last piece to make more walnut Linzer cookies.
At this point, when all the cookies are baked and cooled off, you can decide either to freeze them, store them for some days or to fill them with fruit preserve or jam right away. As you can assume, I chose the latter. Wink.
Finally, here is how to build walnut Linzer cookies. Putting them together is easy. Place the “top” cookies (that would be the ones with the hole) in a single layer on a parchment paper and dust them with the icing sugar.
Then, spread the fruit preserve (of your choice) on the “base” cookie. Finally, it is time to put them together. In other words, place the sugar-dusted cookie on the corresponding jam cookie. As a result, you have a lovely, almost like a sandwich looking walnut Linzer cookie.
Serve the walnut Linzer cookies for Holidays. In fact, they taste the best for Christmas. Wink. Enjoy them while fresh, tender and delicious. Therefore, I suggest eating them within a day or two, when at their best. Storing them for weeks or even days is not an option, because they are simply too good. Wink.
Enjoy and happy holidays!
PS
If you like the recipe, if you make the recipe or if you have any new ideas how to improve or change it, let me know in the comments section below or alternatively share your photos and reactions with me on Instagram (@Passionspoon), Facebook or Twitter (@PassionSpoon1). Simply use the hashtag #passionspoonrecipes in your posts. I would love to see them! (wink)
